Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of oil and gas production and more specifically to the field of analyzing shale and tight rock oil and gas fields by quantifying differences in rock quality within a hydrocarbon bearing reservoir.
Background of the Invention
Due to the increased need for more efficient ways to develop oil and gas fields, a variety of different development strategies have been developed. For instance, conventional development strategies include well spacing, wellbore stimulation software, and like strategies. Drawbacks to such conventional methods include inefficiencies in accurately defining differences between rock qualities in the reservoir, which may lead to inefficient field development. Additional drawbacks include inefficiencies in quantifying differences in stimulated rock quality within a reservoir, which may lead to an insufficient or excessive number of wells drilled and completed in an area as well as inefficient development planning aimed to maximize profitability from predicted performance. Further drawbacks include inefficiencies in normalizing well performance data for analysis when wells are operated on different choke sizes. Drawbacks also include inefficiencies in determining the optimum fracture stimulation design, including optimum amounts of certain stimulation materials, for a defined performance area by incompletely defining the comparable stimulated rock quality areas. It is to be understood that the optimum completion design may vary with changes in rock quality within a reservoir.
Consequently, there is a need for improved methods for quantifying differences in stimulated rock quality. Further needs include improved methods for analyzing stimulated rock qualities.